


Those Differences Between Chrome and Steel

by SquirrellyThief



Series: Lines of Demarcation [4]
Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Character Study, Gen, Lot of liberties taken with the lore, Mostly about Phasma and Hux's friendship, Phasma-centric, Slice of Life, background kylux
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-02
Updated: 2020-01-02
Packaged: 2021-02-27 04:28:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,513
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22091092
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SquirrellyThief/pseuds/SquirrellyThief
Summary: Phasma had no discernible personality of her own. She was just a suit of armor, shiny and chrome, reflecting any light that drew too near.Phasma is a consummate pragmatist completely detached from emotion. Or likes to be. Says she is.But the things one says about themselves are seldom true.[Not TROS compliant, obviously]
Relationships: Armitage Hux & Phasma, Armitage Hux/Kylo Ren
Series: Lines of Demarcation [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/910023
Comments: 10
Kudos: 55





	Those Differences Between Chrome and Steel

**Author's Note:**

> I started writing this right after TLJ but I’m only just now finishing it because Reasons… But hey! I made good on my promise of a Phasma fic eventually.  
> But, thank you TROS for giving me Enric Pryde to use in this instead of having to make characters up. You can uh… keep everything else.
> 
> I am also convinced the _Phasma_ novel is just a vague guide to the lore and I can do whatever I want. I feel no remorse.

Bacta sedatives had her in and out for hours. Possibly even cycles. Phasma was growing a little too familiar with them for her liking. She hated bacta treatments in general, anything beyond a stim or a mist was declined if she was conscious enough to do so. She struggled against the sedatives as long as she could; watching the light strips in the ceiling, counting the little sounds of the monitors. Soft whirrs and steady beeps. Smells changed in the double filtered air of the medbay. At times, she could sense movement just beyond her field of vision. No matter how she tried, she couldn’t turn her head to focus on them. Her left side was pure darkness.

The scene around her never changed. Nearly fifteen years on star destroyer and one would think she would have gotten used to it by now. Even Starkiller’s core base had lacked the simple boon of days and nights, trading them for cycles and shifts. Always lit. Always the same. The whole of the First Order was like that as far as she could figure. Cycles and shifts. Allotments. Patterns. Simple, clean, predictable.

Clockwork. Obedience. Order.

She remembered the first time she landed on Starkiller. The first time she’d seen conifers and snow. All uniform and pristine with its crisp unbroken landscapes around the trench. Very much like the Order itself; cold, unforgiving, cinched tight with durasteel and feats of engineering. The frigid air like needles in the joints of her armor. On request, she’d come out the staging area from her transport vessel. Hux had been out there, pale faced and red around the edges from the cold, looking out over the nearly finished weapon and the work crews laying parts and waving cranes into place.

There had been another man with him. Phasma’s height in head-to-toe black, cutting a broader but similar dark line to Hux on the otherwise white horizon.

“I still can’t believe it…” The mystery man had said, emotion scrubbed from his voice by filters and tech. “Heh. You know, this planet was sacred once upon a time.”

“To whom?” Hux had asked, not hiding his skepticism.

“Cowards and dead men,” was the reply after a pregnant pause. The man in black stomped inside.

“Who was that?” Phasma had asked when she was sure he was gone.

Hux had sneered in disgust, “My co-commander. He’s a brute and a child.”

“So, your type then.”

He’d glared at her and she’d felt nothing.

A hand jarred her shoulder and she snapped awake with a clarity that felt like health. On instinct, she moved to sit up straight and take in her surroundings, but the hand on her shoulder tried to stop her. Not that it mattered. The headrush and flash of black across her vision slowed her down all on its own. She had to lean on one arm and breathe through the dizziness to stay upright. Blindness in her left eye was noticeable now but overshadowed by the absence of her left leg just below the knee.

Oh, that was a sick irony she didn’t really want to think about.

“How long was I out?” she asked, rubbing her temple with her free hand.

“Eight cycles. You still need to take it easy, Captain,” said a mousey voice on her right.

Phasma straightened her back, drawing herself up to a respectable height. She ignored the airiness behind her eyes as she leveled the poor low-ranking medical officer a glare that sent those few unfortunate enough to see it sprinting away.

He was a thin, delicate-looking thing. Disarming by design. A comforting presence for the sick and traumatized. She didn’t recognize his face, probably part of the _Supremacy’s_ crew. Either way, he was a poor choice on the part of his supervisor to serve as Phasma’s jailor. He must have pissed somebody off and was now realizing the error of his ways judging by the way he trembled. “You’ve-“ he cleared his throat, “You’ve sustained quite a bit of damage. The bacta treatments-“

She stopped listening. A quick look around told her she was in one of the tight observation cubicles of the _Finalizer’s_ medbay. A wall-mounted monitor above a cot lifted high off the ground to accommodate cabinets of emergency supplies. A storage cart with locked doors on her left. No other furniture. Around her and the officer was a nearly transparent off-white curtain on shining hooks with no shadows moving beyond it. They’d stripped her down to basics and her armor was nowhere to be seen.

“Where’s the general?” She interrupted, snapping her gaze to the officer in time to see him stumble over a sentence. “I would have expected him to want to debrief me as soon as I was awake.”

It wasn’t like Hux to not be here. He’d been sitting at her bedside, waiting to harass her seconds after she woke after her date with the trash compactor. Even with a mountain of damage control and an angry, obstinate Kylo Ren throwing a fit, refusing treatments a few bunks over. He’d even had ammunition in the form of video feeds to back up his whispered accusations. Ensuring she had no means to defend herself.

She felt his absence like another missing limb. The wrongness of it like a weight in her chest. There was a bitter taste in her mouth.

The look of fear on the man’s face did not bode well for his future. “General?” he asked, and she only stared him down. “Oh. Right. General Hux. He is -um- _indisposed._ ”

She wasn’t buying it. Not even sedatives could fog her brain that much. Hux _lived_ to tear down his colleagues and eavesdropped on every medical regimen she or Ren was ever issued in the years they’d all worked together. If he wasn’t here, something was keeping him away. She immediately suspected Ren. Or Snoke. Or both. “One more time,” she said in the same tone she used with the young, mouthy recruits that seemed to think they were blasterproof. “Say it right.”

“He’s convalescing in his quarters,” he blurted. Which was better, but not what she was looking for. Phasma wracked her brain for the meaning of the word, she knew she’d heard it before. But without her helmet to do a hasty look-up on the fly, she was left wanting.

So, she went with an old standby. “ _Convalescing._ ” She echoed, putting as much annoyance into her voice as possible.

Were he stronger, his grip on that datapad in his hands would have snapped it clean in two. He knew he was in trouble. A kind that extended beyond the bounds of professionalism. It was no secret that she and Hux were of a side and any lies told to one would be known to the other. “There was an…” he looked up at the ceiling as if it could somehow provide the words he needed to get out of this unharmed. “incident. I don’t know all the details. I wasn’t assigned to it. But he is expected to make a full recovery in a few cycles.”

Phasma’s heart sank. “What kind of incident?”

He took a deep breath, weighing his options and seeing Phasma as the lesser evil. “There was an attempt on his life.”

She was halfway out of bed when the medical officer snapped into action. Muscle memory turned Phasma into just another soldier with a problem sitting still, nearly body-checking her to get her back on the cot. “Captain,” he warned with as much authority as his meek voice could manage, “If you do not stay still, I’m going to have to sedate you again.”

Phasma grabbed him by the front of his jacket and dragged him on to the bed next to her, pinning him there with her weight. “What kind of attempt?”

He blinked up at her, shocked. “Supreme Leader Ren has an investigation underway.”

_Supreme Leader Ren?_ Hux had let him get away with that? What the hell had happened while she was out?

What else had changed?

“One more time,” Phasma snarled. She lifted the officer by the straining fabric still in her fists and slammed him back down. “Say it _right._ ”

“He was poisoned.”

“Elaborate,” barking now.

“I- I can’t.” he whimpered, “There are privacy protocols-“

She balled her fist and leaned into him. He wrenched his eyes shut and braced himself to be hit. “ _Elaborate_.”

“Please, Captain-“

She hit him. The awkwardness of the angle and lingering drugs in her system sucking some of the power from the blow. She felt it rattle up her wrist and arm. If a trooper had used form that bad, she would have made him practice for a shift. No breaks.

The medic would have a nice shiner in a few hours, regardless. That was a comfort.

“A beat down’s beneath you, doctor,” she warned, rearing back for another blow. “Would love to see you explain it to your superiors.”

“Okay, okay,” he held up his hands. “Just, please, don’t hit me again.” And he told her everything. Hux had been dangerously near dead when Ren had called on them, antsy and high-strung even for him. It had been an archaic thing. They almost hadn’t thought to test for it. Cyanide. An empty glass bottle laced with the stuff was empty and shattered on his office floor.

The longer he talked, the colder Phasma felt. A _glass_ bottle. Hux wouldn’t have downed the whole thing at once. Not on purpose anyway. Sure, he’d been running himself ragged, but a whole bottle was more than a little lapse in judgment. It wasn’t like him. At least she _thought_ it wasn’t like him. But a lot could change in a week, apparently.

“I need to put eyes on him,” she said. “Get me out of this bed.”

“Captain, I really can’t-“ He flinched and put his hands back up when she raised her fist again. “Even if I could get you a prosthetic right now, he’s on lockdown while he recovers. Supreme Leader Ren ordered it. No one but the med staff is allowed in.”

Goddamn it, Ren. “How long?”

“I’m really not at liberty to-“

“ _How long?”_

“Three cycles was the order.”

Phasma leaned down until her nose was nearly touching his, “Get me out of this goddamn bed.”

“Y-yes sir.” As soon as she let him, he scrambled off the bed so fast his momentum made him tumble to the floor. “I-I-“ he got shakily to his feet, “I need to talk to the-“

“ _GO.”_ She barked and he darted away. She thought she heard him whisper something about barbarians under his breath when he was safely out of her cubicle but didn’t have the stamina to pursue retribution.

Instead she just collapsed back against the pillow and stared up at the ceiling.

A part of her itched to just throw herself out of bed right now and march to Hux’s quarters, kick in his door and shake him. Catch him mid-recovery when he was too weak to fight back. Too exhausted to argue. Not that it would do anything. If she wanted to bust Hux’s ass for this in a way that mattered, she’d have to get him to confess.

Hux was a weasel. He’d squeeze his way out of any confrontation she brought to him if she lacked concrete proof to pin him down. Kylo Ren would be the opposite of helpful even if he wasn’t already complacent in whatever coverup was happening. Not that she ever expected him to be in the first place. The med team would be snowed by Ren or scared into silence. Did Ren know who’d given Hux that bottle of liquor? Probably not. If he did, she wouldn’t be waking up in the medbay. And if he suspected _Hux’s_ intentions he wouldn’t be convalescing in his quarters. He’d be in sense-inducing backhand range.

The idea of hobbling to the officers’ wing from the medbay on one leg for nothing of substance did not appeal to her. So, she waited and planned her attack.

~*~*~

Prosthetics fitting is a special kind of hell, and she resolved to be a little more forgiving of troopers adjusting to robotics in the future. Not substantially, but the learning curve was a hair wider than she’d suspected. Especially the eye, which required appointment after appointment of recalibrations and testing to get the focus and depth right.

Plus side to both, though, was once the internal mechanics were calibrated, she’d be able to outfit them with prototypes and extras to improve performance. The engineering team would likely be as happy with her as they were with Ren’s cycling of experimental fighters, but it would be an opportunity they’d be fools to refuse.

It would be two cycles before she was released from the medbay and could even _think_ about getting her armor back, and another two before she could do anything about it. The whole set of leg plates on the left side were gone. Probably still with the rest of her actual leg on the floating wreck of the _Supremacy._ Her helmet had a gouge down the middle of it, the wiring was shot, functionally useless in all respects. The chest, pauldrons, and arm guards were good, if scratched and dented from the fall. Not all was lost.

In the meantime, she’d been issued a new set of armor in sleek deathtrooper black that she polished to a reflective shine. But it wasn’t quite the same.

The _Finalizer’s_ quartermaster was a squat man with a neatly trimmed mustache that toed the line of uniform regulations flagrantly. Grey hair flared out in wisps under his cap, which he seemed to wear at all times even when code dictated he shouldn’t, namely on-vessel. Loose skin around his neck spilled over his collar. His features were oddly spread, Phasma noticed as she watched him scroll through a list at his work terminal; a sign of a mixed bloodline, though with what she couldn’t say. She wondered, absently, as she did every time she was forced to endure the man’s company, if his genetics offered him any legitimate benefit besides making him intimidatingly ugly.

Phasma always hated interacting with the quartermasters. The one on the _Absolution_ had been a man in his seventies with no fear of death and called everyone in an officer’s uniform “sweetheart” or “sonny” because he knew no one would do anything about it. On Starkiller, she’d been involved in the hiring process and snagged one only marginally better than this one. A margin that was slimmer than she would have wanted. They were all Old Empire types believing that the First Order would to hell under younger leadership. Though less likely to speak disparagingly to Phasma herself, she’d heard more than a few backhanded comments about Hux, his peers, and on significantly fewer occasions, Kylo Ren as though they thought they could get away with it by virtue of being older than the people they insulted.

In a way, she was reluctant to admit, they were right. She’d never seen an officer over the age of forty sent to reconditioning in her years as captain. It wasn’t due to protocol or age limits on the program. It simply wasn’t done. Older officers were given stern written reprimands. But nothing was ever really corrected.

“Six standard weeks.” He said.

Phasma considered vaulting over the counter. She could fix the armor _herself_ in half that time and still work all her sifts.

“The queue’s longer than normal,” the quartermaster said, placating. He shut down the screen and folded his fat, spotted hands on the counter. “I put you in as high as I could. But projects are already in progress. And the chromium plating might take longer to fix depending on when shipments come in. My hands are tied, Captain.”

Shipments? What had happened to the spare chromium she’d had on ice from Parnassos? “Are there any materials on board? I can do the repairs myself. Give my spot in the queue to someone else.”

“Not enough for the damage you’ve done,” he said, flippant. Phasma stared him down, but he didn’t cow. Instead he just sighed and booted his terminal back up. He flicked through several transparent windows and scrolled down a list. “The supply we had was requisitioned by engineering.” Phasma could feel her heartbeat rising. “Requisition form approved by…” he scrolled to the bottom of a form. “General Hux.”

He twisted the projector so Phasma could see the work order.

Phasma skimmed the form. The chromium had gone not just to engineering, but robotics too. The intent section had been a list of parts in familiar, scratchy handwriting more illegible than normal. Disparate parts scattered everywhere: frames, internal supports, joint hinges, radar dishes and minor repairs for the _Finalizer_. Under it was the flowing, still illegible, script of the head of robotics research and development for things she’d never heard of. At the bottom was the notary stamp of the quartermaster and the unmistakable _Hx_ of Hux’s signature.

Phasma massaged the outside of her thigh, right where the flesh melded with mechanics. She sighed and gestured for the quartermaster to turn the projector away. “Inform me as soon as the shipment comes in.”

“Yes, sir.”

She was already walking away.

Out in the hall, the familiar stomp of boots in unison drew her up short in the doorway. A group rounded the corner to her left. Not troopers, not officers. A wall of black leather and dark, scuffed iron. They trailed a cloud of dust, dirt, and ash that would keep the janitorial staff busy for days.

Ren’s knights.

She watched them approach from her spot in the doorway, moving as a single, powerful entity. She often wondered what went in to being a Knight of Ren. What was the recruiting criteria? Were they all like Kylo? Weird space wizards with archaic weapons and fanatical religious zeal? Droids? Conscripts? Were they even human?

And Kylo was their master. What did he actually do? Teach them? Dole out orders? She’d never actually seen the group talk to others or to each other.

Their heads turned to look at her in unison as they passed, but they didn’t slow at all.

~*~*~

Stormtroopers spoke multiple languages. Common ones beyond the Basic they were all required to learn. One was a subtle thing made of body language and gestures. Moods conveyed in stances, in tilts of the head and set of the shoulders, more so than they ever were in tones of the voice. Phasma had come into this culture at something of an advantage given her home of masks and hidden faces, but there was still a substantial learning curve.

Experienced troopers brought through from the Empire, young Phasma had learned, stood with their shoulders square, favoring their dominant side when relaxed. First Order troopers were straight backed just like their predecessors, yet loose-limbed. They tended to lean on things. Displeasure was a sudden shift of weight. Congratulations were claps on the back, the shoulder. Brotherhood was the bumping of fists or forearms. Control was a hand on the back of the neck. Romance and care were a hand on the back, just above the belt.

Phasma cared for little of it but learned the language anyway. Participated in it when necessary, clapping backs, bumping forearms, cocking her hip and holding her chin high; mimicking the behaviors she observed in others.

Now, however, the troops were scattered and rattled in their armor, rookie and veteran alike. Some missing and never to be accounted for again; vaporized on Starkiller, lost in the _Supremacy_ disaster. Nothing was spoken about them, in words or otherwise. But she could still pick out which troopers were native to the _Finalizer_ by the tension in their bodies.

As she walked between the tight square formations of black and white, heads tilted to her prosthetic leg or skimmed over her armor. She saw them move but didn’t reprimand them for it. Let them look. Let them whisper after dismissal. They were going to regardless. No amount of beatings, public reprimands, or group punishments would stop them.

The rumor mill was constantly in motion, flowing like water through the Order no matter how dire things were. Nothing could dam it, not for long anyway. Bureaucracy and red tape stopped facts dead at times, but eyes and mouths were always connected. Information worked its way out through jokes, memes, word-of-mouth. No one was safe, especially those in power, a fact Phasma had been forced to accept early. The thicker her skin, the easier it would be to redirect the stones thrown at her.

The holonet servers were minefields of speculation; people trying to unpack everything that had happened in the span of a few cycles. Conspiracy theories were everywhere. Some reasonable, that the propaganda machine used to their greatest advantage: _10 ways Snoke sabotaged the whole project_ (On purpose or on accident), _how the Resistance got lucky: a breakdown in five parts_. Other’s not so reasonable _: Kylo Ren and Snoke are the same person! Palpatine was secretly Supreme Leader all along and Ren is just a proxy! The Empire will Rise Again. Starkiller was planned for destruction after Hosnian, this is a hostile takeover, everyone in power is a spy._ How anyone managed to navigate these was beyond Phasma.

_Did you hear…_

How she hated that phrase. It ticked up her blood pressure every time. Sometimes it was followed by nonsense. Sometimes by uncomfortable truths. She had no way of knowing until the sentence ended.

_Did you hear…_

_With Starkiller gone and the Leader dead, the Order’s going the way of the Empire. It would be safer to jump ship now. The crime lords take troopers. The Resistance will take troopers, look at FN-2187…_

Phasma did her best to reward loyalty. She traded credits, contraband, leave time to anyone who reported prospective deserters or served as an example of First Order brotherhood. She had no use for the money or the time off anyway, so give it to troopers. People who would have desire for it. Power and privilege in exchange for confidence and trust. Commendations were like candy and promotions went out like she had a quota to meet.

Those that continued to resist and refused to conform were sent to reconditioning with extreme prejudice; notes for extended time, harsher treatment, anything that would break them entirely to be rebuilt from the ground up. If a trooper whispered slander too loudly, fought or questioned an order, he was pulled out of formation and made an example of.

The propaganda machine was still running. Dissent was not to be tolerated.

Doubt was not to be indulged.

_Did you hear…_

_Someone tried to kill General Hux. They never found the guy, but Ren and Hux haven’t bickered in weeks. Are they finally fucking out their differences -I think I saw them kiss one day- or is it because Ren is Leader now? Who promoted him? Who gave him the right to lead us? Is he even capable?_

Phasma, so distracted by bringing thousands of stormtroopers to heel, barely noticed the actions of the high officers. Anyone ranked above her couldn’t hold her attention beyond a command and the “ _heard, sir_ ” that acknowledged it. Too much needed her unfettered attention with trauma and stress that lingered like wounds festering into contagious hysteria if not tended to immediately. And many weren’t caught in time.

As the dust settled and the smoke cleared, the corps found their routine again. There were more of them now with the refugees. They were twelve beds shy of full capacity and shipping them off was a challenge with such a huge chunk of the fleet being space dust. But everyone settled into the spaces provided eventually, either on their own or by force.

Judging by the officers she knew, though, the transition from Snoke to Ren was going relatively painlessly. And no griping messages from Hux about conference room destruction passed through her inbox. Though there was one particularly hilarious one about Ren throwing General Lewnoc against the ceiling for speaking out of turn during a high brass council meeting.

_Did you hear…_

_Phasma fought FN-2187 on the_ Supremacy _and he got away. She lost. He joined the Rebellion! Other troopers are going too! KG-4867, DB-3066._ Numbers, letters, codenames. Fighter pilots, general staff, shock troops.

She fought to let herself not fall into Hux’s habits of overscheduling. She slotted time for rest even if she didn’t sleep. Time for meals even if she couldn’t drag herself to the mess. Time to just sit in silence, stare at the ceiling, or wail on a training dummy at the gym until she couldn’t lift her arm anymore.

Whole cycles went by where she spoke to no one at all.

_Did you hear…_

_It was actually a Jedi that snuck on the_ Supremacy _and killed Snoke. Same Jedi that took down Starkiller I heard. No one saw anything in Security. Someone must have helped them. The Jedi are real! Of course, they’re real. Ren’s real. You saw what he did to-_

Stormtroopers spoke a common language beyond the Basic they were forced to learn. A language of the body, of fear, of rumors, conspiracies, and jokes. A language of _did you hears_ and misunderstood truth.

And, Captain, did you hear?

“General Hux and Supreme Leader Ren are going to Canto Bight together.”

~*~*~

Keldo had been the spitting image of Phasma. Though they were a couple years apart, they’d looked nearly like twins. A part of her vaguely remembered their mother making that joke a few times; that she couldn’t remember which was the older sibling. Later they would make it themselves, that they’d forgotten a truth they refused to let each other live down. They had the same sunlight blond hair, icy blue eyes, sharp face, strong jaw.

Keldo had differentiated himself by letting his appearance grow softer when standing and fighting were no longer in the cards for him. He wore his wavy hair loose about his face. Frail and delicate, too boyish for facial hair even at his oldest. His eyes were so bright and so clear, brimming with wisdom to replace the brawn he'd been denied.

She knelt on the smooth, wet stone a few feet away from where he was seated.

“Is this what you wanted?” he demanded. His voice twanging with the bastard Imperial accent that had so plagued their people. Years in the Order had sharpened her ear to it. Made it unpleasant.

Around her, in the dull firelight of the cavern, shadows approached. Hands took hold of her shoulders, her elbows, braced against her back.

“Was it worth it?”

When she looked up, Keldo was without his mask, his face devoid of expression. A blaster burn bled sluggishly in the center of his face. Phasma could only follow the rivulets of blood with her eyes. She wanted to answer him. Yes, it had been worth it. She regretted nothing.

Overhead she heard whispers. _This is your fault. You let them destroy us. Selfish. Selfish. Selfish._

_We were your family. We cared for you._

“There was nothing left for us here,” She argued in the small, broken voice of a teenager. No helmet to muffle her emotions. “We were all going to die.”

_Selfish. Selfish. Selfish._

“The only one you saved was yourself.” Keldo’s blind eyes seemed to stare right into her soul. “You never intended to help the rest of us.”

“I _wanted_ to. I tried-“

_Liar. Liar. Liar._

“You couldn’t even keep Frey alive. You thought you’d be able to help the rest of us?”

That one stung like a taser to the ribs. “No.”

“You never came back.”

Resigned now, “No.” She sank to the stones. The hands on her arms let her.

“You betrayed us.”

Phasma pressed her forehead to the stone. “I don’t know what you want from me,” she shouted, rattled by the echo, “I wanted a life. I _deserved_ a life!”

_Selfish. Selfish. Selfish._

“You had us.” Keldo argued.

Phasma’s voice broke, “We were _dying_. I didn’t want to die.”

Hands on her arms hauled her to her feet. She had no weapons, no armor, no mask, no means to resist them. Keldo leaned back against the wall of the cave, arms folded across his chest. If she hadn’t known his face so well, she might not have recognized it through all the blood, bloating, and bruises.

_Selfish. Selfish. Selfish._

“It will catch up with you, sister,” Keldo warned as Phasma was dragged backwards by shadows. “And when it does, you’ll have to face it alone.”

She fought against the grip but stood no chance. Her bare feet could gain no traction against the slick stones. The more she struggled, the faster they moved, chanting all the while. Keldo became smaller and smaller until she couldn’t see his eyes anymore. She was outnumbered, exhausted. The sound of waves, the smell of salt, the feeling of mist, all rushed up behind her.

Freefall woke her. She laid there, gasping, staring blankly at the air between her bunk and the ceiling until the chill faded from her exposed skin. Even as she rose, Phasma could still feel hands ghosting across her arms. Unseen eyes watched her dress. It was maddening.

She hadn’t had a nightmare in ages. The worst of them had stopped after Brendol took his last dip in a bacta tank. And the ones that lingered were few and far between. The shadow of Parnassos’s destruction, the people she had to leave behind, finally gone from her life. For nearly an hour she paced around her quarters, trying to slow the erratic beating of her heart, but it didn’t work.

Phasma was halfway across the officer’s wing when she remembered Hux wasn’t on the ship. Canto Bight with Ren. It was still funny even hours later and she chewed the inside of her cheek at the idea of Ren strapping the general down to a bed and forcing him to rest. Or worse: Hux trying to gamble. For a man that was such a good liar he was notoriously bad at games that required even the slightest amount of luck.

_Ren_ trying to gamble. Oh, they were going to owe that casino so much money by the end of this.

Phasma slipped into Hux’s rooms like it was second nature, the familiar orderliness immediately calming her. Perhaps she should have detoured to the gym. Walked right past his door and vented her restless frustration with violence. But, her body and mind refused to act upon that notion once she was already inside taking off her helmet and booting up his terminal.

She checked on Millicent. Bored, stressed out, and underfed as always, just like her master. Phasma scoffed and tapped the necessary prompts to care for the digital cat in between buckles of her armor.

Usually when she did this, she crashed on his sofa. It was comfortable enough to sleep on (really more a stylish futon in that way) and sufficiently out of the way as to not disturb Hux if he was already asleep when she got there. Hux never said anything about it on the days he found her there curled up under the spare blanket he kept stashed under the right cushion. But he did always request a second cup of caf to be brought in with breakfast. She repaid the curtesy by vanishing before he came back out of the refresher to put his uniform on. It was never discussed. Never cause for action.

Tacitly allowed.

She wondered if that was going to change now because of this whole business with Ren. This ‘molding’ as Hux had phrased it. Much as she didn’t like the idea of losing this little change of scenery, the idea of walking in on the two of them together appealed to her even less. Not that Hux would allow such a glaring breach of security, but accidents happened.

However, when Phasma finally rose from Hux’s desk, Millicent satisfied with her care and snoozing, she was reminded that the sofa was gone. Ren had had his chaotic way with Hux’s office furniture.

She wondered if he mistreated his own quarters this way.

With a sigh, Phasma turned her eyes to the bed. Hux wasn’t here. Wouldn’t be here for another few cycles. It wasn’t like he was going to have to kick her out. Between her schedule and housekeeping droids, he’d likely never even know she was there.

She collapsed on to it, her armor in a neat pile on one of the chairs that had replaced the sofa. The mattress was the same thin, uncomfortable thing she had in her own bunk but without the spring-dampening foam cover. Stars, no wonder the man looked one step away from snapping in half. He slept like _this._

He'd replaced his comforter at some point though. That was something. Phasma had no idea when he’d done this, but it was a plush, decadently soft thing. Not as nice as the one he’d had on the _Absolution_ , or the one on Starkiller, but it was warm and soft enough that Phasma could sleep in just basics for a change.

She rolled on to her stomach and tucked her arms under the pillow. The case was crisp, freshly ironed, all detergent and no softeners.

When they were small, she and Keldo shared a blanket and a mat. It was before the raids, before all of it, back when they still had parents and baby fat and dependency. There’d been so few warm things to go around, so their clan slept in groups for warmth and safety. It had, of course, stopped when they had to sleep in slings. When they were old enough to take on prospective mates as company. But, even years later, Phasma found herself missing it in a way she couldn’t put into words.

When they were in treatment for radiation poisoning, Brendol too petty to let them just dip in the bacta and recover the fast way, Hux had indulged Phasma that strange longing. He’d dropped the railing on one side of his cot and was skinny enough to slot against the other one. Her cheek against his shoulder, he’d rest a datapad on his hip and quietly read his memos aloud. The tip of his stylus would guide Phasma’s eye through the syllables as he went until they were both too tired to see.

The next shift, Phasma was up. She left the room in the care of housekeeping droids to reset it.

Her next off-shift, she was back, not bothering to go to her own quarters for more than a shower and a change of clothes. When she knew he was coming back, she considered not returning to his rooms at all. Let him settle in on his own. Not bother him after three days of mandatory fun with Kylo Ren. But her feet carried her there anyway.

He looked surprisingly good, all things considered. A little bleary. A little hungover. But he was pink in the right places and the circles under his eyes had faded considerably. His shoulders loose and posture relaxed. The idea that Kylo Ren’s company could actually be a good thing was hard to swallow, but the results were obvious.

Hux winced when he plopped into the chair opposite her. _Ah_. So he wasn’t strapped down to _sleep_ after all. She couldn’t resist the urge to call him on using his time alone with Ren to his _fullest_ advantage. His face turned so red, yet he had nothing bad to say. And this was _Ren._ Phasma had thought that the second those two fell into bed together it would be a roast for the ages.

For the longest time, Phasma had been confounded by that aspect of Hux’s personality. He never seemed to even _like_ these men he slept with. Always ready to throw a staggering battery of insults as soon as they were out of earshot. Sometimes he didn’t even wait that long. After a while, she thought it was just what he did. A _preference_ , as Hux had phrased it, much like his preference for men. He just wanted guys he could mock before, afterwards, and probably during.

But then, barely two years after Parnassos, something shifted. Something she couldn’t name but felt in the pit of her stomach. They were on their way back from a planetside meeting with an ambassador. A meeting Phasma had been dismissed from after a long bout of fruitless negotiating. At the time, she hadn’t thought anything of it. She was just there as security detail. Rank and file, not privy to the inner workings of the Order’s systems. She’d heard how Hux’s voice tightened when he said, “What do you want?” as the door closed, but again thought nothing of it.

And then, in the lif, he’d been ashen, dead-eyed and hollow looking. He didn’t say a word for the entire hour and a half trip back to their ship _._ His jaw was set, his fists clenched tightly behind his back.

His hands shook when he finally opened them, back in his rooms and away from the prying eyes of the public.

He hadn’t asked her to, but she’d lingered like a guard dog for the rest of the shift and the entirety of the one that followed. She shed her armor while he spent a concerningly long time in the refresher, clouds of steam wafting up from under the door. Most of his visible skin was bright red and raw when he’d finally come out.

They gave in to fatigue and split Hux’s bed, Phasma acting like a barrier between him and the door. Something to take cover behind and tend to wounds she couldn’t see. He’d slept so fitfully it had kept Phasma awake the entire time. She wasn’t convinced it was all sleep either. But, several hours and a few cups of caf later, Hux was himself again. When she asked, feeling obligated to after his behavior, he’d brushed her off. He’d accomplished his mission, the hows and whys didn’t matter anymore.

Shut out, Phasma had let it go. But it happened again. And again. And kept up even after Brendol had died.

Phasma noticed him watching her across the desk. When she lifted her gaze to acknowledge him, he steeled himself. “If I ask you a question, will you answer it honestly?”

“Yes,” she said, knowing any accusation he could level her way would be nothing but bitter slander. She’d been on the straight and narrow since she’d left the medbay. Nothing could touch her.

“Do you care what happens to me?”

All of Phasma’s canned responses fled her. Pithy comebacks, saucy remarks, justified outrage, just _gone_. Her thoughts left too. She hesitated, not knowing where this had come from. Not knowing how to respond. As she tried to collect herself a weight started in her chest.

She blinked and, for a second, his hair had lost its color and his eyes were blue.

~*~*~

They were wrapping up inspections, on their way out, when a transport was cleared for landing. Not one of theirs. A boxy thing in classic Imperial grey. Several silhouettes on the opposite end of the hangar scrambled to their places.

“Who is on that ship?” Hux asked casually, frowning at the vessel.

Behind them, a trio of lieutenants who had been taking notes during inspection, ticked away at their datapads frantically. The transport touched down with a rush of air.

Mitaka was the first to speak: “It seems brass has sent an investigator to observe the _Finalizer’s_ workings, sir.” He started reading, “On the basis of several disasters under the current command, that of one General Armitage Hux, and the slow response times thereafter, an inspection of competency has been unanimously decided.”

Phasma clenched her fists at her sides. All that had happened _months_ ago, and they were just now conducting their investigations? Would it be unheard of to file a complaint about the slow reaction time of the council?

Hux, however, was unfazed. “Who is the assigned inspector, Lieutenant?”

The gangplank of the transport dropped down with an ominous pneumatic hiss.

“Allegiant General Pryde, sir.”

When Phasma glanced at Hux, her hand went to her wrist guard and the stim hidden inside. He’d lost all his color. His eyes had gone dark. His chest rose and fell slowly with forced deep breaths.

An older man, tall and slender, came walking down the plank surrounded by a gaggle of petty officers and stormtroppers. He had the stiff, lock-kneed march of an Imperial and, vaguely, reminded Phasma of the holovids of Grand Moff Tarkin Brendol had showed her. He spoke to a pair of _Finalizer_ officers at the base of the plank, then looked in their direction and marched their way.

Phasma straightened, squaring up to the interloper as he approached. The others around her took the cue and did the same. Hux, however, was stock-still like a prey animal inches from a snarling predator. “General?” Phasma prompted, and when he didn’t move, she nudged him with her elbow. “Hux.”

He snapped back into himself so suddenly it made Phasma startle a little. He cleared his throat and tucked his hands behind his back in an attempt at prim propriety. “Well,” he said, voice sounding distant, “Let’s make sure he feels welcome, shall we?”

A bitter taste settled on the back of Phasma’s tongue.

Enric Pryde wasn’t what Phasma would call an intimidating man. Not at all. He was a lot like Brendol when she thought about it. A look of displeasure cemented to his face like any other expressions would cause his skin to tear. There was an elegance to him not dissimilar to Hux, only on Pryde it was more spider-like and sinister. He stepped out in front of his troops as they drew near and gave a small salute by way of greeting. One all the officers returned. Phasma couldn’t see any weapons on him.

She took a half-step back behind Hux, the place her rank demanded she be no matter how badly she wanted to put herself between the two men. Hux’s hands were shaking when he tucked them behind his back again.

“Allegiant General.” Hux said. “The _Finalizer_ is surprised to have you.”

“She should be,” Pryde said. “The council wanted to make sure I saw business as usual, so the order was only sent to your aides when I’d gotten the all-clear. I hope this won’t be a problem, Armitage.”

Every person on Hux’s side took a breath through their noses. Something usually silent in singular but audible in stereo.

Hux, for a moment, looked ready to bite the man. “I have rank, General, and I am in command of this vessel. I suggest you speak to me with the appropriate respect, sir. Especially in front of my crew.”

Pryde didn’t correct himself.

“Well,” Hux soldiered on, determined to find civility where there was none. “You must have had quite the flight from the _Steadfast_. Officers,” the collective stomp of salute, “See to his ship.” And they scattered. “Troopers,” _clack, stomp_ , “Please show General Pryde to the nicest empty room we have. I think the ambassador’s quarters are still empty.”

Those around them moved to flank Pryde and his entourage.

“Captain, you’re to stay with me. Our business is not yet finished.”

“Yes, sir,” Phasma said.

As Pryde’s group walked past them, Hux gave one last order to his men, “Make sure he wants for nothing.”

“You’re too kind,” Pryde said, saccharine.

“Yes,” Hux bit back, “I am.”

When Pryde broke line of sight, Hux started off at brisk march across the hangar and into the first corridor he reached. He moved at a good clip, much faster and they’d both be jogging, but not quite enough to arouse suspicion. The general was always in a hurry, always with something to do, especially when the Supreme Leader was away. When they made it to a lift, Hux was out of breath.

Phasma opened her mouth to tease him about his PT regimen.

But it died in her throat when he started hyperventilating. He braced his hands on the guard rail at the back of the lift, shaking, pale, bending at the waist a little. A part of Phasma worried that if he finally got that deep breath in, more than just air would come back out on the exhale. But he couldn’t quite get there on his own, and each breath was a wheezy, panicked gasp.

“Whoa, whoa, Red.” Phasma rested one hand on the back of his neck, hoping the cool leather of her glove would be helpful in some small way. “Settle. You’re okay. Breathe.” She squeezed her hand, digging her fingers into the tense muscle.

Hux closed his eyes, clenched his mouth shut and breathed through his nose for a while. Phasma worked her own jaw while she watched him. If just seeing the inspector was enough to do this, how would the actual evaluations go? He’d never buckled under the idea of being watched before. Hell, his entire rivalry with Ren had been based on keeping tallies on fuck-ups to be plan and counter accordingly.

The bitter taste in Phasma’s mouth worsened.

Hux’s breathing finally evened out after a minute or so. He relaxed against the wall, running his hands over his face and swearing under his breath.

“You want to explain yourself, soldier?” Phasma prompted when she thought he was ready.

“No.”

“Red,” she didn’t want to reprimand him, but a gentle warning might nudge him in the right direction.

But Hux wouldn’t be moved. “I don’t want to talk about it, P, please.”

She released him. When they reached the bridge floor, Hux straightened himself, smoothing out his hair and tugging his tunic back into place. “It’s fine,” he said, stepping out, pretending to be himself, “I just wasn’t expecting to see him again.”

Phasma wasn’t convinced, but let the doors shut between them without argument.

Over the next several cycles, Phasma observed Pryde and Hux’s interactions near-obsessively, but always from a distance. To the point where she would delegate her tasks with her corps to her aides under pretense of doing rounds. Something about Pryde made Phasma uneasy. Made everyone uneasy it seemed. Officers scattered when he drew too close. Troopers tensed and bowed up when he spoke to them. The rumor mill was mysteriously silent about him. And every time he got within spitting distance of Hux, the younger general looked seconds from vomiting, fainting, or both.

On more than one occasion on the change from gamma to alpha, she let herself into Hux’s quarters to find him locked in the refresher regretting breakfast or brushing his teeth like he intended to scrub a hole through his tongue. She didn’t ask because he wouldn’t answer. He was hiding from her and falling apart.

Just like he had after Starkiller.

Phasma hated gambling. She particularly hated gambling on shitty odds. She needed a safe course of action. Something that would work. Something he couldn’t resist.

Someone who could get under his skin that he couldn’t hide from.

In the background of her days, Phasma watched manifests, keeping tabs of every ship that passed through the _Finalizer_ ’s airlocks. Supply ships, TIEs coming in from drills, troop vessels coming in empty to ship out their surplus to the fleet, and finally, after a week, the _Upsilon._

Phasma dropped everything and booked it to Ren’s bird. She didn’t quite hit a full sprint, but she considered it.

Too bad he wasn’t on the damn thing.

Instead, it was a few of the knights. Not even the whole squadron. By Phasma’s count one was missing, but she was sure she didn’t have the most accurate representation of their true numbers.

“Where is your master?” she demanded, “I need to speak with him. It’s urgent.”

There was a long pause. “Master Kylo had something to attend to,” one said, but which one Phasma couldn’t tell, their voice hollow and deep through their vocoder. “a personal matter. He said he would rejoin us when he was done.”

Phasma wanted to punch something. “And when is that?”

An electric warbling, “We do not know.”

Without another word, Phasma turned on her heel and left them to their devices.

She caught Pryde watching her as he made his own rounds through the ship. There was judgment plain in his eyes. She wanted to pin him to the floor and gouge them out with her thumbs. Felt it like an itch in her palms.

Phasma occupied her sleepless off-shifts pacing and then, doing research. She found little to damn Pryde with. Commander of the _Steadfast_ in the Empire, worked closely with the big names of the era, universally disliked by his subordinates. No one talked down about his skill as a commander, but they described him as humorless, exhausting, and needlessly difficult. Most of his career had him in command. He’d done a three-year stint at the Arkanis Military Academy like the rest of his colleagues, the normal rotation. He taught naval strategy. But he’d left before Phasma had ever seen a space-faring ship.

She cracked a calorie bar between her teeth and kept looking.

In all the instructor holos for the three years Pryde was there, he and Brendol were standing next to each other. She poked around further, looking for events from those years, First Order-sanctioned gatherings of any kind. She even went into the officer’s server to poke around.

And then she hit paydirt. A Life Day dinner held on Arkanis by some rich investor. Back in the days of the Empire, the timestamp said, near the end. Pryde stood in a pristine dress uniform holding a narrow glass of a pale liquid, raising it in a mock toast. His arm around the waist of a woman Phasma had only seen in pictures: Maratelle Hux. And at her other shoulder, was her husband, Brendol.

It didn’t explain how her Hux and Pryde knew each other, but it was enough to kindle ideas. She briefly considered confronting Pryde himself on the matter, but the very thought felt like an unnecessary betrayal, so she scrapped it.

Supreme Leader Ren finally decided to grace his flagship with his presence once more during one of Phasma’s off-shifts. Like the fucker knew she was looking for him. The only reason she’d found out at all was because she’d put a squad of troopers on rotating alert for him. They tracked his movements through the ship on her behalf while she threw on her armor, messaging her whenever his course changed until his path was obvious. She ran down any empty stretch of corridor she caught on her way to his quarters, which were laughably far from her own.

She didn’t bother with chimes when she got there. Two weeks she’d waited for this asshole to swan back on to his own ship, she wasn’t about to be polite. Could it get her killed? Probably. Demoted? Possibly. On Ren’s bad side? Definitely, but he didn’t really have any other sides. It felt better to just beat her fist against the door until her hand tingled.

She heard his voice through the pounding but didn’t let up until the door was open and she could shoulder her way inside.

Something wrapped around her throat and tried to pull her feet out from under her. “We have a problem,” She said quickly, to pull his attention from retaliation. It seemed to work. Phasma stayed on her feet, her airway clear. “Hux is under investigation for the failings at Starkiller and all that. If he doesn’t get through this, he’ll be a civilian with a record. It’ll end him.”

“I know,” Ren said, looking wholly unamused and folding his arms across his chest. He was stripped down to plainclothes, still sweaty from being under his armor. His boots were gone. His hair was damp around the temples and pulled back out of his face.

He knew? Of course, he knew. The knights must have said something. Or the orders had gone to him. “The investigator is Enric Pryde.”

“I know,” Ren said, with a touch more annoyance. “And I know that this is an ideal situation. Hux and his ship are being evaluated by a man he is on good terms with.”

“Who the Hell told you that?” She hadn’t meant to say it out loud. At least not so bluntly. It made her wince at the sound of her own voice, especially when Ren’s eyes widened in anger. “They aren’t on good terms,” she clarified.

Ren scowled at her, “He was an instructor of Hux’s at the academy. Wrote him a glowing letter of recommendation that got him into the command college. What do you mean they _aren’t on good terms?_ ”

The bitter taste that had haunted Phasma since Pryde arrived, coated her throat. She wasn’t about to tell him any of the details of Pryde’s arrival. “ _Brendol_ and Pryde were on good terms,” she said with a slow deliberateness usually reserved for particularly obstinate recruits. How the _hell_ had Hux gotten a letter from Pryde? No one in Brendol’s good books would have willingly done him such a career-making favor.

Ren seemed to come to a similar conclusion. His look of annoyance melted away. His arms unfolded and he started swearing. “Where is Hux?”

“Resting. I had to tranq him though. He’s… managing. The way he does.”

Ren made a face. The very air changed. Phasma found her own mood changing too. “I’ll get rid of Pryde. Get the investigation called off. He’s not even internal affairs anyway. Is he?”

“Extreme circumstance. Brass let him volunteer when the position opened up. Regardless, he’s been here for two weeks already. You can’t just boot him now. The council won’t stand for it.”

“The hell I can’t.” Ren argued, turning petulant. Surely Hux would have explained the limitations of his power. The lessons the Order had learned from its predecessor. “I can overrule the council.”

She and Hux were having a _talk_ later. “For declarations of war, budget spending, and military _movements_ , yes. For internal affairs, no. the council exists _specifically_ so you can’t play god with ranks. And even if you could, it would reflect badly on Hux’s already damaged reputation. If he gets to keep his position just because you two are fucking, he’ll get blacklisted.”

Ren’s ears turned pink. After a second of holding her gaze, he conceded, sighing and running his bare hands over the back of his neck. “I think I’m starting to understand how Snoke got away with never showing up to anything.”

Phasma couldn’t stop the helpless laugh that bubbled out of her.

“I could still appeal to the council,” Ren argued, “Convince them Pryde is unfit to do the inspection. Just get someone else to replace him.”

“They won’t believe you. The council doesn’t trust you.”

“Why not?” Stars, he sounded like a child.

“The same reason most of the Order doesn’t trust you.” Phasma countered, years of frustration finally bubbling over now that they were alone in a room together. “Because you aren’t one of us. You aren’t like us. And they know it.”

Ren, to his credit, held on to his composure while he defended himself, “I’m not the only defector that’s joined the ranks. Was it not enough that I sacrificed my whole life to come here? That have done nothing but fight and kill for the First Order every day since my arrival? That I’ve cut myself off from the Light? I killed my-“ He snarled at a space to Phasma’s left. “What more does it want from me?”

Phasma’s anger fizzled but didn’t quite die. “It’s not about that. Your loyalty isn’t in question, Ren. It’s your _ability._ You’ve been a great hound, a great sword, a powerful weapon. But no one knows if you’re fit to lead us. They look at you, they hear you speak, and they see a man that carries himself like a republican. Speaks in a republican accent. The council sees an emotional basket case that can’t be trusted in a real emergency.” She poked him in the center of his chest and found a little give there. “Your heart is so human. Your wolf disguise is convincing, Kylo Ren, but the trained eye can see the fleece in the laces. It’s not about power, it’s not about loyalty, it’s what you will and won’t do. And you haven’t earned that trust yet.

“You only get it vicariously. Through people like me. Through people like Hux. _That_ is what the council is looking for in a leader. Under all that delicacy, under that lack of field experience, they _know_ beyond doubt, is the six-chambered heart of his father. That he is ruthless and savage and will not balk at the prospects of horror. That he can pull stability out of the maw of disaster even if it destroys him in the process. Can you say the same about yourself?”

She watched Ren’s painfully expressive face attempt to mask impassive. He was getting better at it. Hux was no doubt teaching him _something_. But it still wasn’t quite where it needed to be. “I will do what is necessary.”

“For what?” She demanded, the way she might a stormtrooper. She didn’t have time for Kylo Ren to be human right now. She needed a Supreme Leader that could play the game and bring Pryde to heel in time to salvage Hux and get him through the back half of the eval. She needed an authority that he sorely lacked.

“To maintain our hold on the galaxy.”

“Wrong answer.” She punched him with the full might of her arm, right in middle of his chest. Ren only staggered a half step, but it was definitely going to leave a bruise late.

“How dare y-“

“You need to learn, and we don’t have the time for you to do it on your own right now,” Phasma interrupted, balling her fist to take another swing. But her body froze in place without her consent. She couldn’t move, but she could still speak. “You have all the power in the galaxy. What will you use it for?”

A dull ache started up at the base of her skull and pierced straight into her brain. She wasn’t going to give him the correct answers, or anything else he wanted to see. Instead, she focused her thoughts on how badly she wanted to punch him again. In the face this time. On the fire and determination she’d felt from Hux when he’d fought with her that night in the gym. That vicious, animal savagery that skyrocketed meek men into positions of power. She thought of herself, of the sudden prospect of living twice as long. Of the men and women she’d turned into soldiers. Real soldiers, fearless and ready to die; hearts clockwork and inorganic. As the pain in her head worsened, she thought of Armitage, the sad-eyed young man that had ripped out the heart of his greatest tormentor and consumed it without hesitation or remorse in broad daylight and _dared_ anyone to do anything about it. And when they didn’t, he took the man’s work, the man’s name, everything he had been, and made them his own to live or die by.

Something tugged painfully when she came to a final, damning question:

Had Kylo Ren done the same to Snoke?

And Ren let her go with a little shove. Phasma stayed on her feet. In a huff, he swept past her to his bed and opened one of the cabinets built into the stocky, solid bedframe. “If not the council, there must be a way to get around Pryde. Make him concede the position.”

“He wants to undo Hux, I don’t think he’ll give up that chance without a fight.”

Ren made a thoughtful noise. From the cabinet there was some clinking. “Then we just have to make sure Hux clears this hurdle. I built a catapult once. Should work.”

“We?”

“You barged into my private quarters and got on my nerves, that’s as good as recruitment.” He produced two squat glasses and a spherical bottle of some deep indigo liquid that he opened with one hand while levitating the glasses with the other. “You have no say in this.” He poured a pair of drinks.

Phasma didn’t mind.

Ren returned after putting the bottle back in its place, one glass in each hand. He offered the one in his left to her. “Drink. I think you’re going to be here a while.”

She took the glass but didn’t remove her helmet, watching as he sipped his. As far as she knew, Ren had never seen her bare face. She wasn’t sure if she wanted him to.

He noticed her hesitating. Eyes focusing on her face plate. It was strange, like this he seemed so genuinely soft. So gentle. A great beast that fought on command but lived in laps and on sofas when off the lead. Like he could feel everything she did. A part of her hated his face. Couldn’t see its appeal. His features didn’t quite fit, and those that did seemed weak in comparison. She wanted to punch him to see how his skin would bruise.

He arched a brow at her. “If I didn’t know you were picked up on a dying planet, I’d suspect you of being Mandalorian.”

“What?”

Ren laughed and explained himself in broad strokes, a weary traveler telling a folk tale. “Though I don’t think the trooper corps is going to kick you out and brand you a heretic if you take your helmet off.”

Phasma rolled her eyes and to prove she wasn’t so emotionally fragile as to be religiously dependent upon her helmet, took it off and placed it on his desk. Ren’s expression didn’t change as he looked her over. Though it did when she took a deep drink of what turned out to be a very powerful liquor. Strychnine water steeped with flowers and sweeteners that did nothing to mask its bitterness. He laughed as she coughed into the crook of her elbow.

“Yeah, it’s potent stuff. You should probably sip it.”

Fucking smartass. A part of her wanted to look him straight in the eye and drink the whole thing in one go. But such pettiness would earn her no favors.

He took up a spot next to her, tapping his terminal to life, leaving noticeable prints in the dust. “We have to make sure Hux survives this,” he said, wiping the whole glass top of his terminal with his palm before putting in his password, “I’m not going through the trouble of replacing him.”

Ren’s UUI was not what she was expecting. She’d anticipated disorganization, utter chaos. And while it wasn’t streamlined and minimalist like hers or Hux’s it was elegant in its management of clutter. He had a slew of applications, most of them practical either for his duties as a knight or those of Supreme Leader, their icons shrunk to their smallest setting and placed in alignment with specific nodes on the strange star chart-like design he used as his desktop image. Something ancient and archaic Phasma didn’t know but harkened to the design of Ren’s mask and those of his knights. Something that felt steeped in spiritualism and tradition.

The only thing that seemed out of place was the very obvious infinity symbol hovering above his inbox.

“If Hux snaps, Pryde will ship him back to Arkanis himself,” Phasma said. “He might be able to get a job teaching or some shit, but we’ll never be able to even speak to him again without it being a breach.”

Ren frowned at his screen, tapping his fingers on the desk until an override prompt appeared. “We could kill him.”

“The council would be suspicious.”

Ren took it in stride. “ _I_ could kill him.”

“He’d never provoke you,” Phasma countered even though she agreed with him this time. “He’s worked with Vader before. He knows better.”

“Fuck.” The prompt vanished, accepted, “I guess we just have to wait him out and make sure Hux doesn’t immolate in the process.”

“Easier said than done.”

The screen flashed and a schedule filled the screen. An ID number and the name _Hux, A. E._ appeared at the top. It was filled to bursting. The only breaks in meetings and inspections were the amount of time it took to get from one space to another.

“Goddamn it, Prism,” Ren growled under his breath, “Why are you like this?”

Phasma sipped her drink to avoid commenting on the name. “It’s how he copes.”

“With what? Stress? Seems a little counter-intuitive.” Ren joked. A second scheduler opened, this one with _Ren, K_ at the top. No ID number. It barely had anything on it after his arrival time. Just another departure that Ren immediately deleted. Without a word, Ren just started moving meetings from Hux’s schedule on to the matching free spaces in his own until he’d reached the end of the damage Hux had done to himself.

“I’m taking half,” he said, voice stern and authoritative. A strange timbre for him. “Hux is to _sleep_ during his off time. I’ll get a dosage of tranquilizers approved with the med staff. Use them to drug him again if you must. If he fights you, report him to me and I’ll deal with him.” He looked over the new schedule, still disapproving. “Try and line up your schedule with his. Any time you take a break, make him go with you. You don’t have to force him to eat, but remind him to shower, and just make sure he doesn’t work in that time.”

Phasma inched closer, looking over the shifts Ren had let Hux keep. The next cycle was completely devoid of things to do, but the rest was reasonable. She could work with it. “And how do you expect me to do that, Supreme Leader?”

Ren snorted, and knocked back the rest of his drink. “Guilt trip him?” he coughed, “Strong-arm him? Hell, he weighs about as much as a sack of rice and has the muscle mass of a twig, just fuckin’ pick him up and carry him.”

Phasma could only imagine the look on Hux’s face when he was thrown over her shoulder and hauled off the bridge like a fussy child. He’d shout and struggle but be powerless to stop her. “I’m going to take that as permission.”

“Just try not to bump him into things. He bruises easily.”

She sipped her drink. After a moment, she noticed him watching her. He was a lot like Hux in that way. Always watching people.

“Why does this concern you so much, Captain?”

“Does it not concern you?” she said, the deflection painfully obvious.

He had ground to stand on this time. “It does, but my reasons are purely selfish. Sometimes people cannot see what is best for them and need to be shown lest they destroy themselves.”

Phasma could only think of Keldo.

“But why,” Ren continued, not noticing her distraction, “does this concern you enough to barge into my room in the middle of the night and give me the business?”

She watched the swirling colors in the bottom of her glass for a long while.

_Do you care what happens to me?_

_Selfish. Selfish. Selfish._

“I don’t want Pryde to win,” she finally said, turning to meet Ren’s gaze. “I don’t want _any_ friend of Brendol’s to win. Not against Hux. Not against _me._ And, frankly, I’m not exactly keen on taking orders from a new general.”

Phasma didn’t miss the slight uptick of Ren’s mouth, like he’d won some game only he was playing.

~*~*~

It took them ten years to finally pull the trigger on Brendol.

They had toyed with the idea for as long as they’d known each other. One night on Parnassos, as they were all camped out, she and Armitage were on watch looking at the stars. The desert was empty for miles around. She asked him about his family, if he’d had any siblings. He said no, all he had was his father. The only thing he truly hungered for in his life, was to see Brendol’s end for all the brutal things he’d done. He described a few of those things in broad strokes, and Phasma had ground her teeth the whole time he spoke.

And then Phasma had met the man. Watched him take Frey but leave the pregnant Siv behind no matter how Armitage tried to appeal to him. “The Order needs children, not parents, boy.” Watched him in a tearful silence that might have appeared stoic behind her mask as he reduced the only world she’d ever known, the only _people_ she’d ever known, to cinders and dust.

United in bloodlust and trauma, the pair started planning as they recovered from their ordeal. All while Brendol spun the more palatable narrative around them like a spider setting a meal aside. Once better, they picked out the particulars; barely losing momentum in the transition from sickbed to workstation. Plans were refined down to the letter in the caf breaks between lessons and training.

Eventually, as things always do in the First Order, work got in the way of their grander schemes. Phasma was up to her chin in teenage recruits and people asking about her new armor. Would she stand for holos? How did she earn such custom pieces? On advice she agreed to and explained herself by leaning on the standby of “Loyalty is Rewarded” and everyone just seemed to eat it up.

Her counterpart, however, was burning his last embers petitioning over and under tables to take control of a project he’d been watching since he was Frey’s age. A real engineering assignment, something to slingshot his career past his father’s once and for all. A weapon he talked about with a truly fanatical zeal whenever Phasma asked him about it.

Unlike Phasma, who seemed mired in fascination and praise from ‘go’ (most likely due to the fact that Brendol liked her) Hux’s game was one of rejection and frustration. She often found him hunched over his desk rewriting proposals and tweaking blueprints, exhaustion in his eyes and a new fruitless misadventure to regale her with. Sometimes with a new faceless man to roast on the spit of his ire for their amusement.

In the end, they lived in peace on the _Finalizer_. Hux had been promoted and transferred off the _Absolution_ first and he called in the few favors he had to have Phasma dragged behind him. Once there, out of Brendol’s immediate shadow, they nearly forgot all about him. The thirst for vengeance lingered, but it was a manageable craving. They were untouchable now with all this distance. Blackmail couldn’t reach all that far without losing a few of its teeth along the way.

Then, Frey transferred to her squadron, fresh out of Cardinal’s training corps.

It had been the only time Phasma regretted all she’d done to keep her name after her recruitment. The fresh troopers all had their helmets off and one of the officers was lecturing them about the rules of engagement. Phasma’s eyes scanned the adolescent crowd, looking for signs of dissent to show on their faces. The lieutenant had introduced her, and Frey’s little face had lit up somewhere near the back.

Cardinal hadn’t conditioned the softness out of her. Whether it was on purpose or an oversight, Phasma was never fully certain, but she suspected the former. Frey was still small for her age, so many parts of her the same as when Phasma had seen her last, clinging to her arm and crying as the stormtroopers tried to haul them in opposite directions.

Phasma did everything in her power to tamp down the familiarity the girl had with her. Ignored any attempts to start conversations. Gaslit her about Parnassos, about Scyre, about Keldo and the others. Pretended she didn’t see faces behind her mask every time Frey mentioned a name.

No, she had to remind herself, she wasn’t _Frey_ now. She was VL-8419. Another number. Nothing more.

Hux had tried to warn her. His bruised, red-rimmed eyes never making contact with hers as he said that Brendol was coming to evaluate them both. Make sure things were up to his standards. The stormtrooper program _was_ his project after all. He’d said it was already too late.

Phasma had been less cynical. She was convinced, foolishly so, that she had the situation under control. That Brendol would have no reason to take issue with her or Fr- _VL-8419._ Everything had gone smoothly when Brendol arrived. Had continued to for the majority of his stay aside from the odd hiccup or mistake that fell within the margins of human error. VL-8419 barely said a word around Brendol, and Phasma thought she was in the clear.

The cycle before Brendol was supposed to leave, when Phasma was off-shift, there was an incident. In the six hours between Phasma’s last inspection and her wake up call, Frey had been brought to the medbay with a lethal injury, an accident, a misfire during a training exercise and no one had noticed until she was already dead.

But when she went over the incident report, the details weren’t in Brendol’s handwriting.

“How did you know?” Phasma demanded when she barged in to Hux’s quarters. “You might be fast, but you’re still human. You filled out that form ahead of time. How did you know?”

Though the sting of betrayal was real in her chest, she couldn’t accuse him of conspiring with Brendol. Hux was better than that. Had to be. But Phasma’s grief demanded answers she knew Brendol wouldn’t give her.

“Because he’s done it before,” was all Hux said, his voice taking on that flat quality it did when he spoke of his father’s influence. Like it was pre-recorded, read from a script, and stored in his throat for later use.

Phasma didn’t have it in her to ask any follow up questions. Her armor suddenly felt so heavy. She collapsed on his bed, only having enough strength to take her helmet off and let it clatter to the floor.

She heard a sigh and the creak of his desk chair. Socked feet against smooth flooring and the click of a loose belt buckle. She saw his shadow seconds before he fell on the bed next to her, elbow to elbow, his jacket falling open.

“He did this because of me,” she said to the light strips.

“Both of us,” Hux corrected. His willingness to take at least half the blame was a comfort. It was, after all, partially his fault. Hell, an argument could be made that all of this, every hardship Phasma had suffered in the last decade, had been his fault entirely. But she wouldn’t have gotten off that rock without his interference. It broke even in the end.

“He’s done this because of you,” she said instead of engaging with his statement. “Before.”

There was a long pause. “Yes.”

Phasma turned her head to glance at him. He was staring straight ahead, gaze locked. She’d have to wait for details. Hux liked to communicate in silences and would shut down if pushed too hard like a computer past its prime. Phasma could respect it, her own temper explosive if poked too persistently.

Of all the languages the First Order taught her, silence had been the easiest to learn. The pair of them spoke the dialect equally well.

“When I was much younger, Brendol had found me with a boy.” Hux eventually confessed, “And since he didn’t want me to have any attachments… anything that could hold me back… that boy had to be dealt with.”

Phasma scowled at the ceiling, “So Brendol killed him.”

Hux made a noise through his teeth, like he was about to disagree and correct her. The beginnings of a ‘no’. But he never got there. Instead he said. “It’s better this way. The best thing that can be done in this is a swift, clean death. The alternative is being in Brendol’s sights forever, and you know how that is.”

She felt Hux’s words like blows to the chest. A swift, clean death. She closed her eyes and saw Keldo, masked and defiant, through the sights of her rifle. The bittersweetness of not being able to preserve him but being able to save him in some capacity. She wondered if he understood in the end, when things were inevitable, just how far gone his way of life was.

The young man beside her was only a little older than Keldo would have been, though he sorely didn’t look it. There were times Phasma could have sworn he was younger than her with how untarnished and unbent he seemed. And then there were moments like this, when he stared straight ahead like he could see something in the distance and looked so impossibly ancient Phasma didn’t know if she’d ever catch up. If she’d even want to.

“We can’t let this stand,” she said. When he didn’t respond, she plowed onward, “You have substantial rank. A command of your own. That was the only thing stopping us before.”

Hux rolled over and dragged himself across the bed on his elbows to rummage through his nightstand. Phasma craned her neck but couldn’t see his face. Though there was the telltale _click click_ of his flip lighter. She elbowed him hard in the hip for the strain he was going to put the air filters through, but he was not deterred.

“Do you remember the plan?” he asked.

“Yes.”

More rummaging and Hux sat up next to her, a plastic box in his lap and burning black cylinder between his teeth. _Death sticks_ the troopers had jokingly called them, but the packs Hux kept in his drawer only ever called them cigarettes. She was surprised he still had them, given how many times he’d told Brendol he’d quit when his packs were found on inspection day.

Hux dropped the plastic box on her chest. Grey sand and little black flecks swirled around as it moved. Phasma took it between her gloved hands and shook it gently. A shimmering golden beetle poked its head out and skittered about the surface, trying to attack her hands through the plastic. She tapped the side as it clawed at her fingers and knocked the stubborn little thing over.

Hux blew a puff of smoke out through his nose. “In that case, Brendol leaves top of delta.”

“Let’s make sure he gets a proper send-off.”

“It’s been a while since I’ve done damage control.”

~*~*~

As Pryde’s evaluations dragged on, Phasma longed for the authority to body check him into a trash compactor. She seriously considered holding on to her next batch of leave time to go back to Parnassos and find another water beetle and be done with all this. Twice was too risky to actually act on the urge, but she took solace in fantasizing about Pryde meeting Brendol’s painful, pitiful fate.

At times, when Pryde’s derisive criticisms bled from Hux’s leadership skills to _hers_ and her team’s, Phasma considered a less-obvious means of homicide. A little effort and some time and she’d probably be able to get into his account. Use it to talk shit about Ren in a way he might see. Something semi-public. Something that would get the officers talking too. It might not get him killed, but it might get him choked or slammed against a wall. Or put him on the business end of a lightsaber-swinging meltdown.

The mental image got Phasma through the days.

Mandatory rest was keeping Hux functional and efficient, but he still wasn’t himself. Especially when Pryde was near. When the allegiant general went off on a slew of criticisms, Hux looked for all the Order like a man consciously telling his body to breathe.

  
“You call this a formation. Look at these lines.” “How often do you run inspections? This is disgraceful.” “What would Grand Admiral Sloane say if she had the misfortune to see this?” “What would your _father_ say?”

And Hux was all “yes sir”s and silence in response.

Resentment was building in the ranks. Any leniencies Hux had deemed to award over the years as morale boosters and catalysts for comradery evaporated like water on hot stones within cycles of Pryde’s arrival. Long rounded corners sharpened to a razor sharp point and there wasn’t a sleeve that didn’t get caught in the crossfire. And everyone knew who to blame.

The officers’ disdain was open and unguarded. Every face dour. Every line stiff. Begrudgingly helpful, passingly civil, polite to the letter of protocol and not a step further. No one did anything that wasn’t demanded of them. No one worked a _second_ over their shifts or showed up early anymore.

Soon, the whole ship, all 95,000 of them, in a display of brotherhood Phasma had never seen in her years in command, had rallied. The _Finalizer_ was on the defensive, her hackles raised in defense of her long-standing commander. Disasters tied bonds tightly between men and these had seen the worst the Order could have endured twice over.

Those reluctant bodies that had no love for Hux on a normal day got a little nudge from their Leader. If Phasma didn’t get to them first, that is.

Mutiny was in the air. Pryde barely noticed.

They seemed to have that in common, Brendol and Pryde. The underestimation of the power in being well-liked. It was a tool for them. Useful. A means to an end, not a powerful asset to be held on to like a personal sidearm.

It all came to a head one day on the bridge near the end of Pryde’s evaluations. Cycle before he was supposed to leave. Everything was business as the new usual. Phasma was giving a quarterly report, Hux and his aides were only half listening, the former only present because he was obligated to be. Around them, the bridge team ticked away at their tasks; no new threats on the horizon, no hiccups with the new equipment. Overall, just a quiet, hassle-free day in a sea of Resistance hunting and fleet rebuilding.

Pryde let himself in. He said nothing as he walked the perimeter of the bridge, scowling imperiously at the team. Not a soul dared look away from their tasks or acknowledge him. Best behavior to maintain the status quo.

Phasma petered off in her report, distracted by the way the greener lieutenants stiffened. Their shoulders rose, their fists clenching whenever their hands were idle. The air grew thick and charged, filling the spaces where patience had been spread thin. Something was going to give today she could feel it.

“Don’t,” Hux hissed at her. He put his hand out in front of her hip, stopping her but keeping the order from Pryde’s view, “Just be prepared to reprimand them. The chain of command _must_ be respected.”

Pryde approached them. “I think I have just about everything I need.”

Hux swallowed so hard Phasma could swear she heard it from a meter away. “Excellent. We wouldn’t’ want to keep you from your ship for such a trivial task.”

Pryde’s brows rose. “I would hardly call this trivial. Your career is at stake. Your reputation. I would suggest you be suitably worried.”

Hux worked his jaw. “My ship is up to protocol. My crew is the best the First Order has to offer. I have nothing to fear.”

“Pride goeth before the fall, dear boy.”

Behind them, the bridge door _swished_ open. The few that bothered to glance at the newcomer immediately went back to work with wide eyes and tight jaws. Across from them, Pryde’s cocky demeanor froze into professionalism.

“I assume,” Kylo Ren’s vocoder was right in Phasma’s ear. Somehow it was worse to hear his voice and not be able to see him. “Everything is in order for you to write your report, Allegiant General?”

Pryde only barely hid his look of disapproval. “There are some things in desperate need of improvement, Supreme Leader.”

“Oh?”

Pryde nodded, “Yes. Though they have managed to correct much of the behavior, I suspect the commanding officer of this vessel,” he glanced sidelong at Hux, “has been derelict in his duties for some time. And it has allowed for laziness and errors.”

“Huh,” Phasma could almost _hear_ the mocking tilt of his head, “I’m curious. Just _how_ has my command been lacking, Allegiant General?”

One would think one of the viewports had buckled with the way all the oxygen was sucked out of the room.

“I’m…” Pryde frowned, “I’m sorry, sir?”

“The _Finalizer_ is my base of operations, which makes it the flagship of the fleet just like Snoke’s choosing to the _Supremacy_ had done. Which makes _me_ her commanding officer. Though I do delegate those duties to General Hux while I am away, all of his decisions require my explicit approval.”

On any other day, Phasma would have been livid on Hux’s behalf. But the way the color left Pryde’s face, she couldn’t remember the last time she was so joyously amused by Kylo Ren’s shenanigans. If she ever had been. The hardened Allegiant General became a holoprojection of himself.

Even the tension of the room changed. A quick scan showed a bridge full of children trying to hold parade rest while their drill sergeant was chewed out by a superior in front of them. Across the holotable, Phasma could see Mitaka only barely holding his composure, a gloved hand covering his mouth.

“General?” Ren prompted. Even with the vocoder there was laughter in his voice.

Phasma’s grin split her face.

Not to be cowed, Pryde steeled himself. “There have been myriad minor infractions and attempted coverups of those infractions. The crew has been treated too softly. They think they can get away with murder. The stormtroopers are all behind standard.”

_Like hell they were._

“ And the reconditioning protocol hasn’t been upgraded since Hux was given command.” Unfortunately, Pryde caught himself, “Originally. Under Snoke. And there-“

Ren waited for him to find his stride and regain his confidence before interrupting him. “Well,” he said, sharp and threatening, clearly annoyed with the length of the list. “I’m sure I’ll see _all_ the details of your findings in your formal report.”

Pryde bristled at the dismissal. “Yes, sir.”

“You best get on that then.”

“Yes. Sir.” And he departed to the safety of the hallway.

The whole room exhaled when the door closed behind him. Phasma rolled the tension out of her shoulders and neck, moving away from the holotable.

Ren’s hand was still on Hux’s back just above the line of his belt.

~*~*~

“Again!”

At the center of the mat, the pair started their next bout. The gym filled with the cheers and heckling of their comrades. Phasma moved through their ranks, taking in different angles to look for defects in form and follow-through. The troopers gave her a wide berth, parting like they were magnetically repulsed from being in her way.

Phasma let herself smirk behind her helmet.

_Did you hear…_

_Pryde’s report fizzled and died._

Word of Ren’s power move had spread like wildfire. Pryde’s last days on the _Finalizer_ were a hilarious disaster. Someone had insulted Ren to his face and lived? The rank and file that hadn’t seen it for themselves were flabbergasted. From that point on, Pryde was a live grenade any time he moved through the corridors. Everyone itching to be in audience to the inevitable explosion, but no one wanting to be in the blast radius.

Pryde left in a hurry.

Internal affairs never came to ship Hux back to civilian life. No doubt because Pryde rewrote his report with knowledge that any insult he was brave enough to deal to Brendol’s son would be dealt to the most volatile man in the galaxy by sheer proximity.

It had been brilliant of Ren to wait as long as he did. Phasma would have never admitted it to his face, but it was an elegant use of restraint on his part. Threatening enough to be effective. Public enough to bring shame. Tasteful in a way she thought Ren incapable of.

Maybe there was hope for him after all.

In the resulting quiet, familiarity returned, and corners were sanded down for efficiency. As far as anyone knew, no more investigations were going to be called. It was behind them.

“Next pair!” she said, when one of the combatants hit the ground and didn’t get back up right away. The injured party was hauled off to recover. Two identical troopers replaced them.

Clockwork. Obedience. Order.

The repetition and monotony, the boring sameness, had been one of the more difficult parts of Phasma’s transition to the First Order. Blatant survival, human necessities, were no longer her day-to-day; food was provided, water relatively abundant, plentiful places to sleep, to train, to exist. Every hour was filled with something to do, someone to answer to. She’d wanted to hate it. Wanted to resent having shackles placed on her freedom until she earned the key again.

But she didn’t. If anything, it was comforting to hand over the reins and let herself be set to rights. She wouldn’t take it now if the opportunity arose, of course. She’d worked too hard to get here, but the Phasma of fifteen years ago was a different person entirely.

Hardly even a person, if she thought about it. Just a child really.

“Again!” she shouted when the combatants in the circle broke apart and didn’t immediately reengage.

In Scyre, she’d been considered an adult by all who mattered; child-bearing age, authority-bearing age, combat ready, halfway through a natural lifespan. Before Frey, she and Keldo were the final generation. The last hurrah of their people. And the sooner they could do something profound, the better.

Even when she’d come to the First Order, she still thought herself grown. Or at the very least, adult-adjacent enough for it to not matter. On Parnassos she had been Hux’s peer, his better arguably, and they all treated _his_ skinny ass with respect. His proximity hadn’t helped that. It made her a perfectionist pretending that things didn’t need to be explained to her. That she already knew things she’d never once been exposed to in her life. That words like _leisure, psychology,_ and _preference_ had meaning to her.

Then she was handed the second phase of stormtrooper training. Recruits ages 12-24 preparing for their first missions. Her supervisor one of Brendol’s minions. She saw herself in so many of them, especially the teenagers; fiery and full of vigor, ready to take on the galaxy.

They tensed when a blow was coming. Shook under too-harsh reprimand. How many cried behind their helmets where no one else could see them? They knew nothing about themselves, about the world, about life and the things it took from people. They were _children_. No better for the experience of puberty, but hers to mold as Brendol had molded her.

No.

_Better_. She would not give him the flattery of imitation, even if he wasn’t around to gloat.

And judging by the pair in front of her, the energy of the room, she was on the right track.

Hell, even the traitor, the only one of the hundreds she’d guided, was still turning out to be a damn fine soldier. He might have been running with the other tribe, but her training had gotten him there. He’d been fearless, determined, all grit and intensity and dedication. Exactly what she’d taught him to be.

Phasma huffed a laugh through her nose.

The combatants stopped their sparring without her command. They stood, panting, in the center of the mat. All the rowdiness of the room had hushed to a whisper. The corona around Phasma widened.

“Captain.” A melodic, tinny vocoder said directly behind her.

Her hands tensed at her sides, but she refused to startle. She turned her head ever so slightly to see that the Knights of Ren had surrounded her. A little extreme, but it hardly surprised her. Monsters moved in packs, after all.

Relaxed posture. Face ahead. “Yes?”

“Come with us,” a different vocoder said, this one at her left shoulder.

“Master Kylo has requested your presence,” right shoulder.

He couldn’t have just sent an aide? “Has he now? Well.” She made no move to leave her soldiers, “Best not keep him waiting. I hear he’s quite impatient.”

The knights did not respond. When she finally did leave, two pairs of combatants later, they followed on her heels like a shadow.


End file.
